In denying a request last month to stop the Chicago Cubs from putting up a right-field video board and outfield advertising signs, a federal judge cited a lack of evidence from the Wrigley rooftop businesses to back up claims the structures would hurt them financially.

Rep. Aaron Schock billed taxpayers at least three times for a total of more than $14,000 in private air travel last fall, including for a trip to a Chicago Bears football game, The Associated Press has learned.

A DuPage County judge said Monday he will allow certain secretly recorded conversations to be admitted into evidence at the upcoming trial of a Schaumburg police officer accused of running a drug ring with fellow officers.

Darius McPherson, who was held in contempt of court last November after refusing to testify at the trial of his brother, pleaded guilty Monday to criminal contempt of court as well as possession of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver.

Faced with the loss of millions of dollars in funding, Chicago Public Schools on Monday said it has dropped plans to spurn a controversial standardized test, a decision quickly followed by calls from the teachers union and an influential parents group for students to boycott the exam.

Clout Street

The runner-up to Ald. Deb Mell in the Feb. 24 election filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging widespread problems with voting in the Northwest Side 33rd Ward aldermanic race as he tries to force her into a head-to-head runoff five weeks from now.

The embattled new superintendent for Highland Park and Deerfield high schools has requested to be released from her contract, according to an email sent to staff of Township High School District 113 over the weekend.

They are the muckrakers of the farm fields, bloodhounds for small-town waste and corruption, self-appointed guardians of taxpayer money who comb through the books of municipal governments all across Illinois in search of misconduct and misspending.

Two major insurers are charging much more than others for several common HIV and AIDS medications in Illinois, drawing complaints from AIDS advocates that the companies may be trying to discourage high-cost patients from choosing their plans on the federal health insurance marketplace.

Obituaries

After graduating from high school, Doris "Dori" Bachman spent much of her free time scuba diving. That let to a meeting with her future husband, Lowell Bachman, a skydiving enthusiast who ended up in the Skydiving Museum Hall of Fame.

The Republican-controlled Congress admitted defeat and sent legislation to President Barack Obama on Tuesday that funds the Department of Homeland Security without the immigration-related concessions they demanded for months.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus, whose career was destroyed by an affair with his biographer, has agreed to plead guilty to charges he gave her classified material — including war strategy and the names of covert operatives — while she was working on the book.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before Congress on Tuesday and bluntly warned that an emerging nuclear agreement with Iran "paves Iran's path to the bomb." But President Barack Obama pushed back sternly, saying the U.S. would never sign such a deal and Netanyahu was offering...